Literary Arts Society Presents
The Mosaic
Green Leaves
Spring 2003












A Special Message from the Chief Editor
I would like to take this opportunity to express my sincerest thanks to all
those writers and artists who have contributed to the Spring 2003
Mosaic.
This is
my last semester as Chief Editor of this publication. To say that I am impressed
with the submissions is an understatement. The Spring 2003 editi
.
on of the
Mo
s
ai
c
represents work from some of the most talented students I have ever seen
.
I urge all of you to keep writing, painting, and taking photographs because
creative expression
,
in all of its f.9rms
,
is the most profound expression of the
human experience.
I hereby leave this magazine and its heritage in the hands of my successor,
Dan Buzi
,
who has worked tirelessly on this and previous editions of the
Mosaic.
Thank you for all your time and help over the past two years.
Chief Editor: Ann Metz
Advisor: Dr. Richard Grinnell
Front Cover Art: Painter by Caitlin O'Hare
Back Cover Art: Rounders by Micheal P. Marszycki
"I was 21 years when I wrote this song;
I'm 22 now but I won't be for long.
Time hurries on,
And the leaves that are green tum to brown.
And they wither with the wind,
And they crumble in your hand.
Hello,hello,hello,hello
Goodbye,goodbye
,
goodbye,goodbye
That's all there is
And the leaves that are green tum to brown."
·
-Paul Simon, from the Sounds of Silence album





"April, come
she
will,
When
streams
are ripe and swelled with rain.
May she will stay,
Resting in my arms again
.
June, she'll change her tune,
In restless walks she'll prowl the night.
July,
she
will fly,
And give no warning to her flight.
August, die she must.
The autumn winds blow chilling cold.
September,
I' 11 remember,
A love once new has now grown old."
-A Child's Nursery Rhyme, from the Sounds of
Silence












1
2
3
3
4
5
5
6
9
10
11
12
13
14
14
15
16
17
18
19
23
24
25
26
26
27
29
30
31
34
35
36
I'
.
i
Table of Contents
Untitled
Dan Buzi
Titles are Meaningless
Scott Cooley
Racism Now
Indigo Nothing
Hate
Liz England
Cezanne
Caitlin O'Hare
Narcissist
Becca deSimone
Fuck me
Indigo Nothing
Mission Street
Steve Foceri
Connect
Matthew Cassella
Illumination
Ann Metz
Depreciateing Debauchery
Anna Tawfik
Untitled
Dina Gregory
System
Braden Russom
Misery
Elizabeth England
Deception
Sonya Pedersen
Anthem
Indigo Nothing
AMarine
Toni Williamson
In His Hands
Sonya Pedersen
Slow
Extension
of Extremity
Jess Licciardello
Synthesis Attempt
Braden Russom
Sultry
Caitlin O'Hare
Missing October
Courtney King
Untitled
Michelle Parson
Bacon
Elizabeth England
Nursery Rhyme
DanBuzi
To Bartholomew, the Almighty
Ann Metz
Morning's Grey Light
Courtney King
Rock and Water
Sonya Pedersen
The Boat Dreams from the Hill
Steve Foceri
To my Mother (about a girl)
Sean Prinz
The Art Lesson
Becca deSimone
Georgia O'Keeffe
Caitlin O'Hare








37
For Elise
Ann Metz
42
Literature
Caitlin O'Hare
43
Fast Thinker
Scott Cooley
44
Priceless
Becca deSimone
45
The Opposite Sex
Jay Meyer
47
Departure
Michael Trayner
47
Mary
Michelle Parson
48
For Col
Rick Ambrosio
49
This Place Here
Steve Foceri
51
Pink
Matthew Cassella
52
"Emotional
Suicide"
Courtney King
52
Untitled
Becca deSimone
53
Back and Feet
Sonya Pedersen
54
Snow Day
Braden Russom
55
Marriage
Elizabeth
England
56
Self-Infliction
Scott Cooley
57
Shoots and Ladders
Becca deSimone
58
Symmetry
Sonya Pedersen
59
Bartholomew,
the
Magician
Ann Metz
61
Suicide
Jennifer Mauer
62
Eastman
Caitlin O'Hare
63
No Women
Theresa Edwards
66
Wedlock
Michael Trayner
*
Note: Italicized print denotes
works
of visual art.








·
Mosaic
...
and writing the true non-linear,
Denying our ancestral desire
for
the
flesh how do I sing the song of a
god?
that refuses to be sung
Of the lord Jah Jehovah Allah Yaweh
Brahman
Vishnu
1
Shiva
lE
'
lo-1, E'lo-1, la'ma sabach-tha'ni?
I am the great I am
Star dust to star dust
Man body to woman
Child in the field
The rocks amongst sand
Wind over waters
Water over land
Land over spirit
Spirit - in hand
What can Shiva do?
April
is
the cruelest month
Jul
of dust
-
is hand Whitman sung
the body electric
Eliot saw fear
is the common
abhorance of
Shiva making dust from
Vishnu's preservation
Of Brahman's creation
Which loves the dust
What did he know?
is useless
Beginning always from the end ..
.






2
Titles are Meaningless
By Scott Cooley
Spring
2003
Is solace found in your eyes or is it your counterfeit warmth?
Amid tainted scars and broken promises I grasp for something/anything
Still waiting and always anticipating I find only a void
To believe otherwise would only be considered blind faith
So play your broken and withered melodies of sorrow and lost beauty
I won't know the difference either way, will I?
Who are we kidding, we know blind leading the blind is futile
If
this pen, this song, this fragment of an idea, this hope-or lack of- means
anything, then don't stop
But if disillusionment, wrath and pride are all I'm holding onto then don't persist
There was a time when I would dare to venture
Unfortunately one can only take so much self-loathing
Need it be sympathy, pity or love ..
.
keep it coming
I hate to say I told you so, but I was write again-unfortunately
So continue this charade and hit the repeat button
I know I'm not going anywhere, so make yourself comfortable
So for now I' 11 play that card, listen to your/my melody, smile, laugh and pretend
this is just a stage




Mosaic
Racism now
By Indigo Noth
i
ng
Free flyin' I saw a lynching
Stopped a second to what I was missing
Saw a woman whose name I won
'
t mention
Struggling to loosen the rope's tension
See I saw all the lighting
Watching in awe at the slow burning
Not like the of days where everyone was yelling
Here the people were whispering
Kill the nigger! Kill the nigger!
Kill her for not withstanding
The subtle mixture of smiling with racism underlying
As a conclusion to a resistance of intimidation
I saw her die but rest as an implication
That a higher institution isn
'
t at all near redemption
Hate
By Liz England
Hate is the dark red of fresh blood.
3
sounds like the hiss of a cobra and the scream that follows its bite.
tastes like horseradish and raw meat, strong and rancid
.
s
mells like sweat and burning cinder
s
.
looks like broken homes and barren deserts.
feels filthy and dishonest and empty.










4
Spring 2003
Ce
z
anne
by
Caitlin O
'
Hare





Mosaic
Narcissist
By Becca deSimone
So selfish and undeserving,
I want to drain the sunshine from your eyes
And drink the left-over juice squeezed from inside.
Taste blood in my mouth from biting your tongue
So you don't say anything cruel.
Fuck me
By Indigo Nothing
I bend illogically for a beginning not begun
Strumming to your tune unheard t,y me
I'm offbeat but I think you like that
Sick, little, familiar one
You twist your lust around my body out of
I dare say ...
You being out of practice
I'd say lace lingering fantasies
Full of huffing, puffing, wanting, needing
Kneading my breasts into this non-existent love
Sssssssssshhhhhhhhhh
I can
_
hear your lies if you stop fucking me
You don't have to love me
Don't worry
5






6
"It's not open,"
"It has to be,"
Spring 2003
Mission Street
By Steve Foceri
"No. Look, it's closed, all the lights are turned off." My heart sank as
Paul spoke the truth to me. It was the middle of the afternoon and the Mission
Street Liquor store was closed. We were sixteen; this was our only liquor store
in our town. Clinton was still President. Our new fake ID's were made at a
Chinese photo shop that was located on Canal street on the lower east side of
New York City. It was going to be our day to test them out.
"Shit, where else can we go?" I muttered.
"That gas station that sells beer, the Mobil, its only a mile. Come on,"
Paul lit a cigarette and started walking towards our next endeavor. "Fucking
Sunday. I hate Sunday,"
"Who cares, it's August. We don't have school tomorrow."
"
Yeh but I got work, just as bad," Paul said between breaths.
"Well I don't. I just want to get drunk."
The Mobil station was in the southern side of our hometown. The walk
there wasn't long, but the area bothered the both of us. The southern side of
Pelham bordered the Bronx and the neighborhood was overrun with scum. The
liquor store on Mission Street was a local hang out for junkies, drug dealers and
unemployed men. They usually stayed in the parking lot in front of the store. A
common sight was to see them using food stamps to buy five or ten cent pieces
of gum and then using the change for their darker deeds. But that was none of
our business. Our goal was to buy something to alter our state and to consume it
in a near by (hopefully less populated) parking lot where no one would bother
us.
The Mobil sold us beer without even looking at our new fake ID's. I can
remember mine very well; my name on it was Steve Splitrock. Paul's was
something like Kurt Bertnick. The names didn
'
t make a difference to anyone
else.





Mosaic
7
"
How about there?" Paul pointed to an almost empty parking lot.
"
No, I think the cops will come by and check this lot or somebody will
rat us out. I don
'
t know
,
th
i
s isn't a good spot. Let
s
go to that junkyard
.
I'm
sure no one will be there
."
We headed off. When we got to the yard it was almost deserted. We sat
down against the fence, just off the main road and opened our beer
s.
"
So when are you getting a car?" Paul asked me.
I lit up a cigarette and shrugged my shoulders. My mom had talked to
me about getting me a car
,
but I hadn't really been given an answer as to when I
would receive it. We sat back and drank.
It
didn't take much to get us drunk
back then. When the beer was finished we tossed the bottles over the fence into
the junkyard and walked home.
"We should hangout tomorrow,"
"I get home from work at two, call me."
"Yeh, take it easy Paul."
High school went quickly and college came upon the both of us like an
alcohol-induced fog
.
I didn't see Paul my entire freshman year and finally
caught up with him as a sophomore during Christmas break. On a Sunday we
finally hung out.
I lit another cigarette as we drove in Paul's car. We were headed to
Mission Street, so Steve Splitrock and Kurt Bertnick could purchase a bottle of
whiskey and find a place to get drunk.
"Hey
,
I got this new CD for Christmas," Paul handed me an album by
The Police. "Put it in, it's their best one." I followed the orders of my friend
a
nd
s
tarted the CD on the first track
.
The song wasn
'
t that good. When we
rea
ched Mission Street, the liquor store was closed
.
On impulse, we decided to
h
e
ad to a beer distributor near Rye, New York, just a half hour north
.
It
didn
'
t take us
v
ery long to reach the highway
.
Crui
s
ing along in
Paul's Jeep at about
s
eventy miles an hour, neither of us noticed the driver of
the white station wagon in the right lane
.
The station wagon was going at about
the same speed that we were, and must not have realized that his lane was
about to end in less than a quarter of a mile. Having driven this stretch of road





8
Spring 2003
many times before, Paul and I knew that the right lane ended soon but we never
even
noticed this guy driving right next to us.
The Police album was still in the CD player. I wasn't really paying
attention
to it; in fact, I believe both Paul and I were wondering if either one of
us
had
any
cigarettes left. The right lane ended. The driver of the station wagon
tried to pass us but swerved and almost hitting the rail. His car barely missed our
Jeep. Paul tried to avoid a collision but lost control and crossed over into the left
lane
and
hit the
concrete
divider. The impact caused the Jeep to rollover; the cars
behind us slowed to a stop and thankfully didn't end both of our lives right then
and
there. The white station wagon sped away.
I made it out before Paul did by punching through the passenger side
window. It took Paul almost a minute to unbuckle his seat belt before he too left
the Jeep through the passenger window. We were lucky. The Jeep and Police
album
in the CD player were the only casualties; we walked away without any
senous
m3unes.
When the State troopers
showed
up with the Fire Department to clean up
the fuel from the crash they were both surprised that we were ok. I remember
Paul and I
asked
every one of them for a cigarette, but none of them had any. An
ambulance
was called,
and
even though none of us had any real injuries AF-they
took us to
a
New Rochelle hospital.
"Fucking
Sunday. I hate Sunday," Paul
said
blandly while we both rode in
the
ambulance.
"Do
you have a cigarette?" I asked the
ambulance
driver. He didn't look
at
me, he just handed me two cigarettes and muttered
something
along the lines
of "here's
one for your friend." We smoked the cigarettes
in
the ambulance,
knocking the
ash
off of them onto the floor.
"You
wanna hang out tomorrow?" I asked.
"I
don't know. I'm not sure what my parents are going to say about the
car."
"Well,
call me later on."
"Yet,
I will." The
ambulance
pulled into the hospital parking lot, Paul got
out first. As I got out, I took notice to the look on Paul's face as he turned to me
and said,"
I probably
should
have just hit that station wagon." I just nodded my
head
and
stamped out my
cigarette
on the concrete.





Mosaic
9
Connect by Matthew Cassella





10
Illumination
By Ann Metz
Spring
2003
We wanted them to awaken us,
Those dolls
whose eyes are
always
open
Yet never
see
what
smolders
Beneath the aging coals.
To them we were only gray dust
Concealing live embers
But they never remembered
The ugly ashes or
Stirred the fuel into a frenzy
Of crackling flames.
Their eyes might have been
Illuminated once again,
Tiny glass spheres of fire
Burning holes through black pupils.
But dolls never
cease
to
sleep.
They
are intent
on leaning
Limp
porcelain frames against the wall,
Legs
ramrod
straight,
Clothed
in blue ball dresses
And curled
blonde tresses.
They in the dark, blind and
deaf,
Cackle at our
remnants.
See, we are strong, they say.
The flames die and we won't revive
Them because they show too much about us we cannot hide.
They show us we do not
Ii
ve,
That we all look alike,
That we are naked cold flesh








Mosaic
Stretched over boneless frames,
That we are only children's playthings.
And so they do not stir these embers.
But we flames remember.
We remember the truth they made us consume.
We remember.
Depreciating Debauchery
·
By Anna Tawfik
"Gold and diamonds?
"
No, just copper and glass
Nope, just me
Consider me under another rubric of circumstances:
The evil I
It's not quantity or even quality, he preached, but
qual(ity
Look it up under fictions
Manifest yourself to me otherwise;
Regard me in size 10 font on the software of your mind
Give me an averted glance
Uplift my spirits only to reject them once in the air
Hold my hand only to crush it
Once, he told me it was a crime not to think at all
Well, I say it's unforgivable to think the wrong way on a one-way street
It's like standing for a bath
"A bath of nails," he said smirking at me
11






12
Spring
2003
Untitled
by
Dina Gregory




Mosaic
System
By Braden Russom
Today I'm remembering pieces of
childhood. Little flashes coming to
the front of my mind hke tiny light
bulbs, bursting their glass shells and
screaming luminous into space.
Those one-piece pajamas
with zippers from neck to crotch,
little plastic shells covering the bottoms
of my feet. How gloves smelled after
an hour on the radiator
.
How they
smelled after two hours. What
it felt like when I threw that snowball
into your ear from my banana-seated
Huffy, and saw your face screw up like
it was being pulled from the inside.
How confused I was when Santa Claus died,
that I left cookies and milk for God instead.
How he'd die soon after. That I don't even eat
cookies anymore, and I only drink milk in coffee.
That I haven't thrown a snowball in four years.
13





14
Spring
2003
Misery
By Liz England
Misery is black a
pool of oil.
It sounds like the cries of children,
their pain and suffering revealed in their sobs.
Misery tastes like stale bread
a rotten apple.
It smells like freshly peeled onions
the slow stench of stagnant water.
Misery looks like a car speeding past,
showering people with mud and slime from a storm just past.
Deception by Sonya Pedersen





Mosaic
Anthem
By Indigo Nothing
The bombs bursting in air gave proof that our flag was there
Our flag had bombs bursting in air
Green light shafts moving through their bare
Bare streets, bare lives we are making for the better
The betterment of the people who don't want our help
The bombs bursting gave proof that our country needs examining
Unpatriotic, chaotic, hypocrite, war lovers
Tax voters, government sirens for
911
It's sad to say our time has gone
The number has already imprinted itself in phonebooks
Our children will it look up
They'll understand another Vietnam
Oh say does that star spangled banner yet wave
O'er the land of blind for the mind of the slaved
I'm the words of the brave
The thoughts of a divided US of A
15






16
Spring 2003
A Marine
By Toni Williamson
He watched every war movie ever made. He played in camouflaged
fatigues. He stood tall and saluted whenever he saw the American flag or he
a
rd
the Star Spangled Banner. From a very young age, this little boy knew he
would one day walk among the proud. He knew that he would be a soldier
.
The only decision he had to face was which branch of service to join
.
There
was his Navy Seal period when he took swimming lessons and scuba diving
lessons to perfect a sport he already did so well. There was his Army period
when he would crawl through the imagined swamps in his backyard with his
little face covered in mud so the enemy wouldn't detect him. There was his Air
Force period when he collected every fighter plane ever made and hung them
all over his room.
It wasn
'
t until he turned sixteen that he made his final decision
.
If
he
was going to do this, it was going to be the toughest challenge of his young
life. He was going to be among the strongest
,
the bravest
,
and the best. He
worked hard in high
s
chool and graduated at the age of seventeen. One month
later
,
he was on his way to Marine boot camp
.
It was a gruesome thirteen
weeks. There were many days when he wondered if he had made a mistake.
But he persevered. He graduated boot camp and he graduated weapons trainin
g
s
chool. He made it through his specialized skills course as one of the highest
in his class
.
Today he fights for freedom in the Iraqi desert. Not just his freedom but
also the freedom of all Americans. He is eighteen years old and he is willing to
defend his country against terrorists so that all Americans may walk the street
s
with no fear. He has put his young life on hold so that the rest of us may never
have to endure another 9-11.





Mosaic
17
This is a place where nerves are frayed, the enemy is heartless, and the
sandstorms are merciless
.
This is a place where Army, Navy, Air Force and
Marine unite together to form an impenetrable force against evil. There is no
social elite among these men and women. There is no racism. There is a
mission to be accomplished and they are determined to win
.
They stand
together as one - with pride and honor. They represent the United States and
they are fighting for the American people.
This Marine is where he has always wanted to be. He is doing a job he
has always wanted to do. This young Marine and all the soldiers of all the
forces deserve the respect and gratitude of the American people. Remember
them in your prayers.
Semper Fi
In His Hands by Sonya Pedersen









1
8
....
pers
s a war on pers
rsonal Jesus fre
personjefreed
person who fre
eed us
tl
i
\
j
i
\
t
rnm:ii
i
.c
t can I get for
on't care wha
ant spell free










Mosaic
Synthesis Attempt
By Braden
Russom
"Where we going?" I asked, sitting in the passenger seat of Tim's
green Plymouth.
19
"Nowhere." I knew this to be code for
"If
I told you, you'd
probably whine about it." I kept qu
i
et and
looked
out the window
.
We
were on a stretch of road that didn't look familiar to me. Of course most
of the roads out here didn't
look
familiar to
me
.
We were fairly close to a
city, which in normal circumstances would mean we were in a suburban
area. The thing about Troy though is that once you get outside of it, you
find yourself in the boonies, wondering where the ghetto went and how all
of a sudden you're in a scene from
Children of the Com.
Eventually Tim pulled the car onto the side of the road
.
Out his
window was a large field, thinly covered with shin-high weeds and spotted
w
it
h little shacks
.
He got out of the car and I followed.
"
Where the hell are we?" I asked
No response
.
I was accustomed to this sort of thing from Tim
.
Every once in a while he
'
d get some idea in his head and I had little choice
but to come along for whatever it turned out to be.
By thi
s
point, I was really starting to panic. I had been on the tram
for at least 25 minutes, which I knew to be too long. Had I missed my
stop? Had I gone the wrong direction? I swear there was no bridge this
t
ime. Dammit! This was not good
.
Looking through the windows I was
c
ertain that I had never seen any of these buildings before
.
How could I
have missed a
riv
e
r for god's sake? Or a huge bus station. Or the giant
neon Staropramen sign that I swear must be visible from space. I must
have taken the wrong tram
.
Now here I am, sitting alone on this wire car
with no idea where I might be
,
or how to get to where I need to be. Oh
y
eah, and nobody in Prague seems to speak English. Great.
"Y'ever seen
Deliverance
,
man? This is weird"





20
Spring 2003
"Nope
.
" Okay
,
fair enough
.
We were walking across the field, he
leading the way and I following
,
towards the house that stood along the edge
of the tree line. Weeds whipped against my ankles and crickets jumped out of
our way as we clomped across their homes. My toes were browning quickly
from the dry dirt that we kicked up with every step, and feet had begun to itch
from the crabgrass. I wanted to ask what we were doing, but knowing that I
wouldn't get a straight answer, I held back. We reached the house to find a
very sturdy deck encircling the place along the floor line of the second level.
It appeared to be professionally built which made the house it surrounded
seem even more dilapidated. I followed Tim up the stairs and around the
deck until we found the front door. A few steps inside and I was beginning to
realize where we were
.
"This is Jack
'
s place, isn't it?" I asked.
"Yep" he said. I don't know how I knew
,
but I knew. Jack was Tim
'
s
favorite uncle, who three days before had begun the last week of his life. The
tumor in his brain had been killing him slowly for months and Tim had
watched it all through confused, 17-year-old eyes
.
I'd never spent time with
the man, seeing him in passing at family occasions and exchanging smiles and
handshakes. Now I was at his house, rummaging through the incredible
arrangement of clutter on every surface. This was our last day of summer
.
The following day Tim would leave for college and things as we knew them
would end
.
Our friendship of seven years would change dramatically from
the every day companionship that we both counted on to get us through the
days at military school, to something else entirely that neither one of us had
any preparation for
.
The 30-minute drive that separated our houses now
became five hours that separated northern Vermont from southern New York.
4 days later, Jack would die, leaving all of those things in that house without
an owner, and making Tim and I the last people to ever enter a house that
belonged to him.
Prague is a city with very strong moods. In my short visit
,
I
experienced a couple of them. Heavy depression on gray days, taking the
train through slums where burned out cars rusted in front of graffiti cement




Mosaic
21
walls, broken glass a sparse gravel on the walkways. Shame and fear of the
past in the Jewish ghetto, where the cemetery's gravestones are crammed so
tightly they look like jagged vertebrae on the back of some giant prehistoric
beast. Pride of the sort that makes you close your eyes, lean back, and sigh
deeply as you lean over the walls of Prague Castle, scanning the whole city
and seeing the flags of world embassies: Brazil, England, the United States.
Slack-jawed, numbing awe, standing in front of stained glass windows so
bright and colorful you expect God himself to come glowing through them at
any moment.
It was here, in this wonderful, multi-polar city of confusing emotions
and surprises in every cup of coffee that I was completely stranded for the first
time in my life. Soon after I realized that I was on the wrong tram, it came to
a stop and, instead of turning around and going back the other way, opened
it's doors and ejected me into a small corporate park in the nighttime ghost
town business district.
"So
.
.
.
now what?" I asked, staring at the huge, heavy traffic light.
''I'm taking it home." He said, all the while standing over it with fists
lightly clenched and a look of defiance on his face. We had found the light in
one of the sheds Jack kept on his huge property. It was battered and a couple
of the colored glass gels were cracked and missing pieces. After an hour of
pulling and twisting we had taken it out of the closet, out of the shed, and
onto the grass along the side of the road. We had but cut our hands in the
process. I think we both knew it wasn't going to fit into the car, but by then it
didn't matter. It was going home, and we just had to figure out how.
"Let's wait a minute, huh?" I said. I had grabbed a couple bottles of
water from his house before we left, and by this point we were both pretty
thirsty. We wandered over to the car and sat on the trunk, facing down the
road that went straight on for about a mile before bending around a comer and
disappearing.
After a few minutes he looked up from his shoes and said "Y'know
man, I didn't plan on this"
"On what?"





22
Spring
2003
"Any of this. School, people, anything. Everything."
"Yeah, I know man, I know"
We finished our bottles and threw the empties on the grass. The light
stood
on the grass dented, cracked, and streaked with our blood. We didn't
move though. We just
sat
there, backs to the sun, leaning forward, elbows on
knees, looking down the road.
"What's the deal with this light, anyway?" I ventured, thinking that
now that we had nearly finished our task he would be
a
little more open to
telling me.
''I'unno.
Seems worthwhile though, doesn't it?"
"Yeah,
guess it does. Kind of a pain in the ass though, don't ya think?"
"Yeah but so are you." I laughed. I knew he wasn't kidding, but I
knew what he meant.
"True, but at least I'm good looking." We both grinned. Jokes are
always better shared.
"Ok, let's get this thing home." he said
"Word."
I said, hopping up from my seat and walking slowly,
distractedly over to the light. "Let's take it home." I thought. Indeed.





Mosaic
23
Sultry
By
Caitlin O'Hare





24
Missing October
By Courtney King
Spring
2003
Clouds travel north along the Hudson
Grey-on-grey water and sky
And the fading light of day
Reaches back into the hills
Drawing forth an unruly flock of geese
And an unusually warm autumnal day.
Glass panes separate the world
An universe of tiny boxes and
Of course, the mechanisms of modem life.
As dusk settles behind the overcast heavens
I find myself longing for the light of winter
Or maybe the darkness of summer -
Both cool and crisp like the leaves clinging
Restlessly to the tree tops and eaves.
I miss October.
The skeleton of a too-naked tree
Presses itself against the palate of sky
Leaving, if not a lasting impression,
A deep one on both heart and mind.
So, pressing palm to pane,
I reach forward to the clouds above,
And falling without gravity
I find October is merely a state of mind.






Mosaic
25
Untitled
By Michelle Parson
She used to clean houses. She would take me with her on Tuesdays
after she picked me up from morning kindergarten. I would empty the small
bathroom garbage cans and stand on sinks to help her clean the mirrors.
When we would clean children's bedrooms, she'd make their stuffed animals
talk-I mean the stuffed animals would talk to me in high gravely voices that
sounded like my mother's on some days. Oscar was my favorite. Despite
his
ill
manners, he always told me he loved me.
My mother was beautiful. She had blonde wavy hair and light skin
with freckles. She tanned very well in the summer; turning a golden brown.
Her eyes were a dark chocolate brown with light green speckles you could
see on sunny days
.
She was short, but she wore her height well. At five feet
tall in one inch heels, my mother was often mistaken for a 16-year-old kid in
cut
-
off shorts and tiny t-shirts
.
Every time I look in the mirror, I see her staring back at me-with the
same birthmark on her face, the same dark brown eyes, pale skin with
speckled brown dots, the same button nose, and the same laugh lines that
delicately surround her lips. Although if she were standing next to me I'd
tower a good inch over her.
If she were alive we'd smoke the same cigarettes and wear the same
size shoes
.
We'd wear our hair the same length and style. We'd have the
same last name and the same dreams for my life. We'd share sweaters and
blue jeans with holes in the knees. We'd read the same books and sit on the
couch with our legs folded the same way. We would have the same facial
expressions and hand gestures
.
I wouldn't be writing this if she was here
.





26
Spring 2003
Bacon
By Liz England
I have devoured
the pig
that was your pet
which you were probably
keep
1
ng
for company.
Forgive me.
It was succulent,
so
JUICY
and so crispy.
Nursery Rhyme
By Dan Buzi
When I was five
And still alive
I knew no thousand ways to die
And now it seems
Though sad to say
I find new ways to die each day






To Bartholomew, the Almighty
By Ann Metz
All hail the Game show God!
The Mouthpiece of Jesus!
Mosaic
The Father, Son, and Holy Ghost!
The Lord who reigns on high,
Bartholomew, the Almighty!
He walks on water,
Treading on the heads of
His contestants and lovers,
Crushing them under
The Dead Sea waves.
He wants to imitate the Pat Sajak
Wheel of Fortune Act.
Take a spin and you might win
A Jackpot or end up Bankrupt when
Bartholomew's rubber soul goes flat.
Five loaves of bread and two fishes
He stole from the mouths
Of the five thousand to feed his own greed.
(Oh wait, I mean five loaves of bread
And two chickens-
Bartholomew only eats chicken)
.
It's fitting fare for a man
Who is
like
God
But really only a
counterfeit
Version of the Savior,
Our Christ the Lord
Because he makes his devotees
Go blind from watching too many
Revolving wheels and reruns
Of rehashed television trash.
27






28
Spring
2003
He
'
ll serve you the same meal,
Warmed through twice
,
And tell you he made it from scratch
.
That's Bartholomew's brand of miracle
.
Question his deity and his devotion
To you evaporates immediately
.
Just like Harry Houdini
He does the disappearing act,
Leaving you trapped in his torture box
,
Body sliced into jigsaw pieces.
But you must wipe away the blood
And vacuum the broken glass
.
It was all your fault anyway,
Th
a
t's what he tells you.
He's without sin so let him
Cast the first stone!
Bartholomew the Almighty
Is the Game show God,
The ruler of a million television viewers,
And the Father of all Lies.
And you?
You were only one brief stop
In his thirty minute time slot.
Just a transparent Vanna White
He couldn't wait to shove
Out of his own spotlight.











Morning's Grey Light
By Courtney King
Mosaic
I
am
not young enough to know everything.
- Oscar Wilde
An hour's drive is no place
To put my hopes for the future
And with the muted grey sunrise
Playing with my eyelids
I suffer the indignity of hypocrisy
Alone but with the radio,
As if it were
any consolation at all.
Trying to outrun
a
nighttime
,
lifetime
Of mistakes
and
regrets
,
I find myself
First in the quiet country, the only
car
for miles
Here, with the rolling hills and roadside birds
I am angry and unusually cold for July.
Then, I find myself roaming the city's streets
Their eerie stillness the antithesis
to
My furiously beating heart and mind
The insomniatic whirr of the road
Propels the car and daylight
Six twenty three A
.
M
.
and I'm listening to
"Captain Jack" and "With or Without You"
I smile my own bitter smile
And remember how I tried my hardest
To manage a look of disgust not an hour ago.
The only
such
look should have been
Directed at me from my many reflections
And I'm
sorry,
though I don't know
Exactly for what or to whom ... But I am
Or maybe, it's jl:lst the dull warning
Of
my
oncoming hangover and
dry
mouth.
29




\.,..)
0





Mosaic
The Boat Dreams From the Hill
By Steve
Foceri
31
The boat on the hill never goes to sleep, anchored to a place where it
just dreams. The boat is beat; it's never going to
be
afloat now. Thirsty, it
looks
at the foam upon the waters.
It's master keeps on patching and repainting; thinking about his
pension plans
.
But the boat is out to pasture;
it
seemingly never
had
the
chance. The boat dreams from the hill; "I want to be a boat. I want to learn to
swim, then I'll learn to float, then I' II begin again."
The boat remembers a confident shore hand. Mid-surf, where the
fishing i
s
better in such rough weather
.
Never fearing the water.
No
fears of
capsi
z
ing or sinking and alwa
ys
pushing the limits of its construction. His
master keeps on patching and r
e
p
a
intin
g;
thinking about his pension plans. But
his b
o
at is out to pa
s
ture, seem
s
he never had a chance.
Bought at an auction, on a dolly ever since. It sits on ice patches where
it watche
s t
he world go by
.
Its spirit is beat, but the boat
s
till remember
s
its
carpent
er
's sure hands
;
missing the fishy flutter of its rudder. His master keeps
on patching
a
nd repainting
.
Thinking about his pension plans. But this boat is
out to pasture, it seemingly ne
v
er had the chance. "I wanna be a boat. I want to
learn to swim, then I'll learn to float and I'll begin again. Begin again!"
Once out at sea, the boat was always full ahead. Rough seas
,
never
having been a danger; the boat knew the hotspots, a place where it could
please its master. Midn
i
ght, they were fishing
in
a deep black ocean
.
Still
he
keeps patching and repainting; always thinking about his pension plans. Today
hi
s
boat is out to pasture, it seemingly never had a chance.
Boat remembers the once great things
he
has done. Round the cape,
through th
e
inlets in rough weather. Today I'm beat. I'm never going to be
afloat now. Midnight, I'm still drinking at
the
local
hotspots.
I tried patching
a
n
d repainting. Thinking about my own future plans. Yet my body seems like
it's been set out to pasture. I feel I've never
had my
chance. "I want
to
be a





32
Spring
2003
boat. I want to learn to swim
.
Then I'll learn to float and I'll begin again.
Begin again!"
I've always been the boat. I us
e
d to know how to swim. I once knew
how to float, but I have to begin again. The boat knew the hotspots
,
before it
became a hull. I used to be out at sea in all of the worst storms. Today I just
wat
c
h the water, from a safer place; the mid-surf is too rough for my hull. But
I keep patching and repainting
.
Thinking about my future plans. I don't want
to be left out to pasture
.
I need to at least have one last chance.
I can remember
,
my carpenter's sure hands
.
Building me up, keeping
all of my planks together. I'm not sure if he needs me to be his boat now.
Midnight
,
I'm still fishing in my seas of darkness. Unanswered questions
plague me
,
while I am sitting on my hill. I hate seeing the other boats passing
me by. I feel the ice creak up in my joints. All the patching and repainting can't
repair my lost rudder. All of the future plans of the
water fade from view as my planks rot while upon this dolly. Sometimes the
rainy days drop boyish wonder, but it only serves to swell my planks.
The boat on the hill is never going sea. A swell of memories flood
b
a
ck
,
the younger years of my life all spent on the water. Still the ice patches
under my newfound wheels freeze my hull onto the earth. The cold steel
underneath my rotting wooden sides reminds me just how empty the ocean
fe
e
l
s
without me. So I
s
till keep patching and repainting. Always thinking
about
t
he p
e
ns
i
on plans. I won't let myself go to pasture. One day, I will have a
chan
c
e.
I am the boat on the hill
.
I'm anchored to my own empty dream. I was
once much more than this. Today I know only the hill, and all that was once
water is now hard earth
.
Once a great boat of rough waters and dark oceans
,
now a hull that sits on wheels. Never can I sleep again, but all I do is dream. I
am so much better than just a rotting hull, but I can no longer take a chance on
the rough surf
,
the cold waters or the narrow inlets
.
I don't remember how to
float anymore
;
it
's
no longer useful to me here on my hill. But I keep patching
and repainting
.
Thinking about the future plans. I don't want to be left out to
pasture
,
but I can't really get a second chance. The second chance to be the



Mosaic
33
boat again and not lose my faith in my carpenter. The boat, anchored to a fixer
upper' s dream.
The future is something we can only hope to prepare for.
If the hull of a
boat cannot seal its leaks it will sink in the dark cold ocean. The carpenter's
hands that made the boat never leave it. However, not every boat knows that
and far too many hulls begin to crack; splitting under the pressure of all the
unanswered questions that the ocean brings upon it. The planks swell up with
the dark water of the unknown and the weight of the
world sinks its spirit. Then what little that is dredged up from bottom will
never go to sea again.
Sometimes, parts of the boat can be salvaged, but all the patching and
repainting cannot build it back up to its former glory or the innocence it once
knew. The fears of sinking returns and the boat cannot remember how to float
anymore; that's how the boat comes to sit on the hill, a safe distance from the
water. Anchored to a fixer upper's dream, there I missed the final chance to
begin again.







34
Spring
2003
To
My
Mother (about a girl)
by Sean
Prinz
Passing
by
the soft gray apples
I pull
the
cart over to pick out the fuzziest watermelon,
And in disgust I leave with what I came with.
Only, maybe, through the doors I stand a bit lighter
.
Have nothing to lose?
Fine! Chop a rich man down to the street.
You'll see
-
he'll live in disbelief.
Oh - you will too when
she
tells
you
it was all a ruse.
It really was just banter!
You chose her over me,
Like a beggar choosing a whore over
a
deity
.
(It makes even Jesus want to ravage her!)
You promised me a drink
-
thrice!
Even Pavlov can't fool me that many!
Without reward - how that bell rang in darkness or when it
was sunny.
I
found
myself making
shoe
polish do, but
only
twice.
On that
awful
day
in
September,
Would you
take that plane
and fight?
I wouldn
'
t if you
were
on
that
flight,
Knowing you'd end up an ember!
This is my goodbye to
you
liar!
The apples will redden one day, just not
yet.
Next time I will chose with more
care
than times past.
I stand now, a pitted prune just wandering
and
wondering.
So tell me mother:
How did she hide so much of herself
,
even
when
I
was
inside of her?



Mosaic
The Art Lesson
By Becca deSimone
We were like a shooting star,
flying through the stratosphere so bright and flaming,
painting an intricacy with our fire brushes.
Orange and glowing,
heavy and winded,
you and I challenged the art of manipulation.
The two of us flying,
suspended over speeding cars and fallacies of romance.
It was only you and me, the fire and the bum.
I was hoping we could heal each other,
I was hoping I could taste your essence;
instead I'm left disfigured by your scorching heat,
once bearable intoxication.
35










36
•
Spring
2003
1f
•
..
Georgia O'Keeffe
by
Caitlin O'Hare







Mosaic
For Elise
By Ann Metz
37
SHE had emptied his soul of its contents, slowly over the years, like a
parasite concealed in the bleak recesses of its host's intestines. Now she
gorged herself to satisfaction on the remains of his life as he lay incoherently
under the blue, threadbare sheets and moth consumed quilt. He muttered her
name through white, cracked lips. Elise. Elise. Elise, I cured you. The
songs, the songs kept you alive
.
The doctor leaned over the patient, checking the erratic throb of the
pulse. He glanced at the stoical woman rocking in the chair beside the open
window. She played absently with the chord that joined the curtains,
humming a familiar piano tune.
"I cannot do anything ma'am. Your husband is going to die."
"I know," she replied stiffly, meeting the physician's sympathetic eye
with a composed chill, shrugging carelessly
.
"He's been ill for a long time. After he wrote that last piano sonata,
he came home from the river white with the fever. I knew he was going to
die then."
The doctor reached out a comforting hand and reflexively Elise
recoiled. "Yes ... well, I'm sorry there's nothing more I can do. Keep him
comfortable and call me in the morning," he said, looking away from her.
He stepped over to the door, his coat swishing softly in the silence,
but the woman did not follow. She had lapsed back into the hypnotic motion
of the rocking chair. Elise, Elise. I gave my heart for you. Doesn't that
mean anything?
Elise paused and gazed fixedly at the invalid shuffling restlessly
under the covers. The movement reminded her of a butterfly squirming in its
cocoon
.
Elise, Elise, Elise
...
Three years ago she had been in that same bed, cloaked in those same
covers, and he had entered by accident, looking for the owner of the theater.
Desperate for company, she convinced him to stay, and one hour became one
year. He gazed into her pine green eyes, his reflection reunited with its
counterpart. His kisses were invigorating cold rushes of water current that




38
Spring 2003
made her head spin with ecstasy. He smelled of earth and woods and mint.
Fresh. Animate
.
Not immobile, some prehistoric fossil. She began to feel
death relinquish its bony grip and with renewed energy she stretched her arms
skyward to break through the surf ace.
They were married in her room. No temple, priest, flowers
,
or
relatives. The Justice of the Peace came and the ceremony was completed.
The dead and the living joined in one flesh.
Recovery arrived in increments. All the while she watched as her
husband paid the medical bills by writing piano music for the orchestra and
performing night after night at the theater. As she lay in bed
,
she could hear
the airy melodies of the piano as they crept into the silence of the night
,
creating ripples of noise that reached out and returned
,
reached out and
returned
.
At first, she loved the piano. It soothed and comforted her in the
darkness as a mother's voice humming lullabies quiets the terrified child. The
music enfolded her lovingly in tender arms, floating placidly above the night.
Her spirit seemed to detach itself from the core of her body, rising and rising
with exhilaration to places beyond the borders of the room, past the confines
of the dilapidated apartment. Her spirit exceeded all barriers.
But when the music stopped, she hated it. The wind that held her
suspended aloft suddenly ceased, and she tumbled into the bed with shattering
force. She would drown in despair, sobbing brokenly, and when her husband
r
eturned he was shocked to find her more ill than when he had left.
He took her to every doctor in town. The prognosis was certain death,
unless he could afford to pay for a new treatment. He was seized with a fit of
madness that often accompanies passion-he would sacrifice himself for her.
He would never stop playing his piano until she was better. His music would
save her life.
Every night he performed in the theater, his audience applauding
wildly, demanding encore after encore
.
He slept but a scant few hours after
each performance, rising at the earliest light of the morning with the sound of
his wife's incessant coughing. He spent the day composing new scores. She
too, demanded encore after encore
.





Mosaic
39
"Oh Victor darling,
don't
stop playing
.
The music is just so
lovely
and I
feel
so much better. Play that melody again! It makes me feel so
alive."
And Victor played for her life. He fancied that the notes of his music
were the molecules of oxygen that kept her animate. His fingers struck the piano
keys with intensity and urgency. Sometimes he neglected to eat for hours or days
at a time. Dark, heavy bags of fatigue formed under his eyes. Night after night,
day after day, he played for the ears of his insatiable listeners. Encore, encore,
encore, they cried out ...
Finally, Victor had accumulated enough money to pay for Elise's
treatment. On the night after her operation, the doctor told him that his wife
"would live beyond the shadow of a doubt."
"Her recovery from this illness is remarkable," he told Victor.
Victor received this news with a sad smile and glazed eyes. "Yes, it is
remarkable. It is remarkable," he murmured. Victor thought,
I saved Elise. My
music made her live.
Elise did recover, fully. But now, she hated the sound of the piano. That
which had once drawn her from the grip of death came to symbolize confinement
and illness
.
She looked about her apartment and detested its drab aura. She no longer
looked at Victor, repulsed by his bony frame and pale face. No matter what he
played or sang for her, Elise was not satisfied now.
"It's not the same, it's not the same!" she shouted, stamping her foot with
childish displeasure. "There's something different! Have you had the piano
tuned recently? Did you spill something on the keys?"
When Victor stared mutely back at her with expressionless eyes, she fled
deeper into a rage.
"Oh, just stop playing that awful tune! I hate it! I hate it! I HATE it! And
YOU
..
. look at YOU
.
I can't stand the sight of you; you're so sickly and
white ... like ... like a bed sheet. It's repulsive!"
Victor's lower-lip often trembled at these words and he would slowly rise
from the piano seat, gather his ripped jacket in hand, and leave the apartment.
He began to spend his nights by the river, walking incessantly for hours at a time,
the moon shadowing his steps, indistinct murmurs falling from his lips.








40
Spring 2003
He returned at daybreak to his home, only to be met with the red
,
enraged face of Elise. "Where have you been? What have you been doing?
Twice your boss called in to see if you were here and he demanded to know
when you would be returning to work. Victor, do you want us to end up on the
streets? You have to play, you have to write more music!"
Victor withdrew to the river and composed one last piece. He called it
For Elise. The audiences loved it. Encore, encore, encore, they roared. For
Elise, for Elise, for Elise ...
One night, he returned home, much paler than usual and trembling
.
His
hands were bent at the wrists, like claws, and they shook uncontrollably.
"What is it? What's happened?
"
Elise demanded sharply.
"
I can't play, I can
'
t play,
"
he whispered hoarsely. "I've forgotten how to
play
.
I can't do it anymore.
"
He glanced up, eyes burning with terror.
"I don
'
t know the notes anymore, the meters, the
melodies
.
.. gone ... vanished."
"What are you blubbering about?" his wife demanded. "What do you
mean you can't play?"
Victor collapsed on his knees before his wife and took her right hand in
his left hand. "Oh Elise!" he cried out in agony. "Oh Elise,
I cured you with my
music. Why don't you like it anymore? I wrote it all for you. My songs, my
songs kept you alive. Oh, please Elise
,
listen to my music! Love it again
.
Let me
play it for you. I can
'
t write or play the piano if you hate it so .
...
but it isn
'
t such
a terrible thing.
It
cured you!
It
kept you alive! Why hate the thing that
pre
s
erves life?"
"
Get up off the ground
,
you sniveling fool
,
" she growled. "I hate your
music and I hate that infernal instrument. I will NEVER love it again
.
"
She wrenched her hand free of his and walked away.
That night, Victor sank into delirium. Elise sat by his bed side, listening
to the same words repeatedly fall from his lips:
Elise. Elise. Elise, I cured you.
The songs, the songs kept you alive. Elise, Elise. I gave my h
e
art for you.
Doesn't that mean anything
?





Mosaic
41
The invalid squirmed restlessly in his threadbare sheets. Elise watched,
unmoved. She was free and it did not matter. Outside, the butterflies flitted in the
April sunshine around the flower box.
A
robin swooped down from the trees and
captured an unwary caterpillar
.
Elise stopped rocking in her chair.
It was strangely silent in the room. She
looked over at Victor. His lips were motionless. No breath exited from his
nostrils. His limbs were frozen in a contorted posture.
Elise felt his cheek.
It was rapidly cooling with the onset of death. She
walked quickly to the door and out into the busy street below.
Somewhere distant, the faint sound of piano music drifted in with the
breeze.




Literature
by
Caitlin O'Hare




Mosaic
Fast Thinker
By Scott Cooley
Look at me, I'm a 'Fast Thinker'
Academia deemed me divinity
Close your eyes and swallow my dialect
Stimulate your taste buds but don't open your eyes
Dance with my mesmerizing tone
Search no more, you' re lost
Patronizing, patriarchal and pompous am
I..
.
you love it
Starving for so long, satisfaction is not far
Dizzy with my ambiguity and thirsty for persuasion
Look no further with your closed lids
43






44
Spring
2003
Priceless
By Becca deSimone
Falsely sparkled and misleading clarity like a diamond, mirrored images from
angular eyes, misconception beaming from side to side, feeling as impermanent
as you.
A glorious resolution to define, stigmatize, exasperate the situations we find
ourselves drowning in, as a helpless child would scream while suffocating
beneath her illusions.
The jagged little edges of your jewel-like character cut.
However engaged I am in your graceless beauty when your naked sweat
smothers me, I am flesh eaten and deranged under watchful eyes.
I touch your ring of impurity, shimmering in its beloved glory, and bleed as a
fiery sunrise screams into the morning, spindly and consuming, abated as hour's
progress
.
Words seethe from under cracked lips, juicily melting within a stank breath of
recycled manipulation, and still after all this ticking of time, I cannot
dismember my confidence
when you decide to love me
.




The Opposite Sex
By Jay Meyer
Mosaic
45
"I guess you should take a piss now so your bodybag isn't as heavy. At least do
the paramedics THAT favor."
He stood with uneasiness and lack of conviction directing the pistol at my head
.
I was down on my knees right here, but this was no different than the rest of the
night.
I guess you want to me to tell you how abused and taken advantage of I felt?
Just because I'm a woman
,
I become the victim? We'll save such things for the
Lifetime original movies, shall we? What I want to tell you is how quickly a
situation can change. What I want to tell you is how one's future can form in an
instant. What I want to tell you is how much quicker I am than a bullet.
Perhaps you can relate to this and perhaps you can't, but here is a man with a
racing heartbeat who is so sure of his position as the victor in this standoff. I
wonder if the thought of defeat is even going through his mind. I assume not,
since he has the gun and I have nothing
.
Unless you count my whitened
clenched fist hidden between my thighs
.
I doubt you can understand how fast I
had to be. How fast I had to be see the bullet only grazing my right shoulder as I
stretch an open left hand to yank out the electrical cord for the only light source
in the room. How fast I was as my clenched right fist makes explosive contact
with his face. This is the second time I thank God for the giant diamond on my
ring because I can't imagine my knuckle being able to slice his cheek
.
The gun
quickly changes hands in this scuffle, and why not? It's an instrument for our
use and it doesn't care who holds it with a vindictive grin or who is in front of it
with tearful eyes. So I use this weapon for my own purposes, just as I used my
ring, and just as I used all your minds
.
I forgot to mention that didn't I? Of course I can't read your mind, but this is
damn near close. He had the gun
.
He was larger. Taller. All that was physical and
his place on the battlefield was secure
.
Why shouldn't he win? A quick change
in power puts me in control, but I had the power well before he walked in the






46
Spring
2003
the room. You see? I'm a woman
.
And since my
birth
and generations before that,
you deemed
me
weaker
.
And the optimist in me
hopes
that your future generations
still see me as weaker. For if
I
were seen as stronger
,
how could I get paid for
getting away with murder?
So if you need my services, I won't be found in the dark alleys or damp
underbellies of the world. You' 11 probably see me topside in the light of day with a
smirk that speaks louder than words.
Just
hope you aren't the one on the ground
using the carpet for a urinal.








Departure
By Michael Traynor
In this world
,
There exists a cruel irony,
That a woman would
Give birth to a de
a
d ch
i
ld,
Nine months
Boiled down to a moment
,
And that child
To whom she has fed
Tender life
Is whisked away
Without touch,
And she holds the
Empty air to her breast,
Cradling the shards of
What should have been.
I, too, know about parts,
And how they betray
With their absence, and
How everything
Boils down to
A moment.
Mosaic
4
7
Mary
By
Michelle Parson





48
Spring 2003
For Col
By Rick Ambrosio
I'll remember it's okay,
Even though the world has past me by,
And
my smiles
are
often faded.
I'm
rough around the edges
And the coarseness contends with
your eyes.
I still sometimes feel you don't get the best of me,
And I can't help but say its true.
I'm not a good man,
I'm a weak friend,
I'm a bad teammate.
But I think you should know,
That when
I
look at you,
The world stops moving.
I forget to breathe,
And I get caught up in the moment.
We are always too far apart,
But you give the space between us meaning
,
And in a way your hand is always long enough
To touch my cheek,
And say it's okay to be me.





Mosaic
This
Place
Here
By Steve Foceri
49
Dead dog tracks pace the entrance at 6 Canoe Hill
Road.
There, a place
of discord and energy, myself and two other friends play music with the sole
hope of one day making a living without really working
.
This room when filled
with sound can be a frightening thing. The noise can be surreal, but when it
stops
,
the silence is more than just deafening. Time can freeze in a place
like
this. Memories are made here
,
and all egos must be checked at
the
door. Here
few things matter.
From the outside, this place may appear like any normal home. In its
own sense,
it
is. My friend lives here, yet our lives are anything but normal.
Normal people don't work at such minute things with such a passion. Normal
people don't spend every unearned dollar on musical equipment. No one
normal dares spend their time in this
house.
The
lack
of sanity is a most
refreshing aspect of this place
.
This place is nothing spectacular. Here, music rules. The shock of
the
amplifiers and strength of the drums become something normal. The hiss of the
PA system and electric blue shocks its microphones emit ar~ memorable
moments. Seeing our guitar player getting hit by a
blue
spark is laughable, a
moment we can all recall with great enthusiasm. Here everyone is on time,
even when they are late. Everything is in tune. Consistent chord progressions
chop through the cold air, crunchy, coughing
lyrics
join them
.
We try our
hardest
,
playing until we hurt
.
This is
not
just music to the three of us
;
this is a
s
port
.
The snow outside is sometimes our only audience at this place. Other
times friends stop by to offer input. Mostly, we're by ourselves
.
The dead dog
tracks are frozen in time by the snow
,
our summer memories of him gone with
the warm weather. Our drummer's home made of wood and stone, a place of
overwhelming noise and deafening silences, on a dirt road in Millbrook is my
own second home. Where my greatest investment sits, where my free time is
spent.





50
Spring 2003
One couch seats three people here. One van fits more than it should.
Three friends sacrifice their lives for something that they all believe in and
none of us have any money. This place may not be spectacular
,
it is far from
perfect
,
but it is what we have
.
This basement
,
those amplifiers
,
that bass
,
those drums, that guitar and us three
,
that's really all we have. And we are
more than happy with it.
But things are coming to a slow end. As time goes by, there is little
left to drive us. The times we have spent have made us complacent. We are
used to each other, and that is dangerous
.
Ideas between the three of us run
short and our works sorely reflect that fact. In the end, this will all have been
just a good memory, a passing dream
.
We trudge on, we can't quit. To stop now would be madness
.
Only
time will tell what becomes of the three of us, and our music
.
But this place
here holds us tight and we never want to let it go. Dead dog tracks lead out
the driveway, back to the main road. Where all reality begins.



Mosaic
51





52
Spring
2003
"Emotional
Suicide"
By Courtney King
Tongue tied
and
tight in darkness
With all the words I never said
Body shakes and sweats cold
With everything left undone
And Neitzche claimed that
Every bout of laughter is a dying emotion
Laugh!
Too
much
Too loud
Too long and hard
So it is in the gasping breaths of the
Suffocating
sarcophagus of night
That
I have finally come to recognize
When
laughter
is most important
And
like a madman
screaming at
the
sky
I let
loose
the
manical howl of
abject
And complete emotional suicide.
Untitled
By Becca deSimone
Under crumpled sheets
You'll
find
wrestling
toes.
Honesty
or
misdirection
I'm
not
scared
anymore.






Mosaic
53
Back and Feet by Sonya Ped
e
rs
e
n





54
Spring
2003
Snow Day
By Braden Russom
There's something therapeutic about shoveling snow
Something odd and wonderful in those jagged piles
Something turned up by the swing of the arms
By the scrape of the blade on the pavement
Something about it's whiteness
The way it falls lightly on my hands
Like that red feather boa you wore that time
When your roommate took a picture
The one where you're winking, with rabbit ears on
And your hair clipped like a curtain for the side of your face
I think it
'
s the feeling of clearing a home
In the hours that follow a storm
Or maybe the sense of reclaiming your life
Out of God's little tricks of the weather




Mosaic
Marriage
By Liz England
Everything you hate in life
Always comes back to haunt you.
The person who
Snorts when he laughs,
Gobbles down food that took hours to cook,
Eats the last of the cake before you get a piece,
Leaves the hair in the shower drain,
Always reminds you to do your chores,
Belches at dinner parties,
Hogs the blanket,
Loses the remote,
Leaves the toilet seat up,
Takes all the pillows,
Can
'
t admit when he's wrong,
Can't admit when you're right,
Tums your white shirts pink,
Leaves cigarette butts in the dishes
,
Can never let things be,
Demands too much,
Thinks he's better than you,
Borrows your toothbrush,
Drinks from the carton,
Picks the best roses from the garden,
Picks his nose when he thinks no one is looking,
Leaves soda cans strewn throughout the house
,
Makes jokes in bad taste,
Is always late.
That is the person you're doomed to marry.
55





56
Self-Infliction
By Scott Cooley
Spring 2003
I fear every successive swipe and the demons with which are associated
But an idle mind yields fear
So get to living because dying is too attractive and indulgent
Stop thinking and get to distracting
Deprivation of contemplation would be but a blessing
I pray for the days when I can utter your name without a glimpse of anguish
But an idle mind yields fear
The only threat I can identify lingers within
Amid torn thorns and rigid edges is where you' 11 find my stuff
Safe to say this pen (ME) is my mortal nemesis
Melody, tone, meter, verse and chord are no ally of mine
But an idle mind yields fear





Shoots
and
Latter's
By Becca deSimone
Mosaic
Here we
are
again on this
starless
canvas of black,
strewn
bloody
across
the night
sky.
Our hands gloved with belligerent love,
the cruel irony
strangling
our bruised throats.
No
more
yelling,
I'm
through with your brown eyes.
I'm
cracked
again,
from
my head down
to
my heart.
Tingling spine
and blurry sight,
mouth is dry,
eyes
too.
You've taken
everything
from me tonight.
You've beaten me down and I disregarded the pain on the downward push.
We
felt so
right together,
57
but
you smashed
me with your
condolences and
crushed me with your sympathy.
Realize I have no time for your pity.
You must have trampled me on the storm out of the door,
after you
blew me
away.
My legs are torn apart still,
this time lumpy and poking,
bones jutting because I just can't seem to
walkaway
.





58
Spring 2003
Symmetry by Sonya Pedersen






Mosaic
Bartholomew, the Magician
By Ann Metz
59
I am Bartholomew, the magician. Have you seen my famous show? I have
wrestled to free myself from chains, submerged in freezing water. I have been
buried alive, but have come back from the dead in three days. I have sliced a
woman into pieces (my secret fantasy as a boy) and sewed the parts together again
in my secret torture box.
I live for the crowd, for the sharp inhalation of breath and the thundering
roar of a thousand voices as I emerge triumphant again and again. The love of the
crowd is my greatest pleasure. Their adoration means more to me than the love of
any person or the money that I earn
.
As long as I hear the voices of my adoring
fans, I cast away all other things from me
.
I perform for
them.
The mass of
humanity swells my heart to its fullest capacity
.
No single human being can begin
to replace fame
.
All my miracles have been successful. Well, all except for one. That was
the time I broke a woman's heart, but could not put it back together again. It was
an act that I rehearsed many times in the privacy of my own thoughts, however, it
was an act I had never tried before the eyes of others.
Her name was Sara. She came to work for me as a housekeeper, but soon I
convinced her that her talents were wasted holding brooms and dustpans
.
I planted
the dream of fame in her heart.
Sara was a born artist. Soon she was competing with me for the most
sensational parts of each performance
.
She freed herself from the iron chains in
the tank, while submerged in the frigid water. She spent two days and nights in a
coffin, and emerged on the morning of the third day. She flew through the air in
fantastic leaps on the trapeze, leaped lithely across the tightrope.
Then she began to surpass me in reputation
.
Now, people yelled out her
name instead of mine. The crowd's cheers for my partner drowned out the half of
the audience cheering for me.
Sara, Sara, Saraf







60
Spring 2003
Sara did not notice. She and I became lovers. To her, it was more
important to be loved by another human being than to receive the love of a
hundred impassioned viewers. I told her I loved her
,
but it was not true. I only
wanted what she had stolen from me. I did not care about her.
One night
,
I had her step into my magic box
.
This was usually done by
another volunteer from the audience or a stagehand
,
but I had a different plan this
night.
Sara climbed into my box, smiling graciously at the audience, and then
blowing a kiss to me
.
There was such loving trust in her eyes
.
Th
e
fool, I thought. I
'
ll put an
e
nd to your show
.
I covered it with the top panel, and inserted the knives
.
Hastily, before the
audience saw the blood seeping through the cracks, I closed the front curtain. I
heard her cries in the box
,
the desperate scratching and clawing of nails against
wood
.
Outside, the audience was very quiet.
They heard the cries and were waiting for me to perform another miracle.
I altered the real torture box with my usual stage version. I pushed the
other into a dark comer and opened the curtain.
"Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, children of all ages ...
.
" I bellowed as
I opened the second box
.
A collective gasp filled the theater.
There was blood all over my hands, but the box on stage was empty.
"Sara is not here. She has risen!"







Mosaic
61
A long silence, and then muffled cries and exclamations. At long last, applause
broke out and swept through the crowd.
They believed me, they believed me!
A miracle, a miracle,
were the words that repeated over and over.
Indeed, I am Bartholomew, the magician and miracle worker. Indeed, how
great
is
the love of my audience
.
For it, I would commit a hundred such murders
again and
again. I live only for them.
Suicide
by
Jennf[er Maurer

















62
Spring 2003
..
..
...
--
•
,
.
;
•
•
-
Eastman by Caitlin O'Hare







Mosaic
63
No Women*
By Theresa Edwards
In
the misty sleepy hours before dusk, the bus ride always brought her
mind to the far comers of reality, fantasy pulling her strings as she glided into a
daydream.
1969 ....
No Women Allowed
read the small, delicate words on the door
of McSal's saloon on 16
th
St. near 5
th
Avenue. A New York journalist convinced
that
"quiet
workingmen sipping their genial ale" were the only ones allowed to
step
beyond the powerful sign would have choked on his words had he
witnessed her visit. WorkingMEN
...
not WOMEN.
Yet she ...
she
had opened the heavy wooden doors of McSal's
threshold and dissipated into the rusty, marvelous air inside its walls. As fantasy
pulled,
she
floated within the ancient splendor of the men privy to every
conversation
imaginable, enthralled with the
ambiance
and aroma of the dark,
delicious room. The antique ice chest that supposedly had been used by the
local elephant trainer (ice chest slanting because of
a
slip on the part of the
elephant) and the large gold safe that seemed to hide something of everyone's
past were just as she had read and thought of often.
Of course, the men-all the men, every size, every mannerism, every
smell,
every style, eating raw onions and drinking some of the finest ale in the
country. The smell overwhelmed her, reminding her of her father; he loved raw
onions. She grew very tired, however, as she journeyed through each round
partition of men at tables-in-chairs. The tables were dark cherry wood, polished
each morning she guessed, set each afternoon with the finest of heavy-duty
tableware like the set her mom always used when her uncles (her father's
brothers) came to town for her mom's homemade lasagna. The burgundy-
covered chairs with their overgrown arms and backs conformed to each man's
structure,
each man's life.
She needed to sit down ....... There was an empty chair over by the
window. No one had noticed her except the cats. Three male cats (she had read






64
Spring 2003
somewhere that even McSal's cats were male) eagerly watched as she invaded
their territory of tradition. She moved slowly towards the chair and each step
felt shorter and more scuffled than its predecessor did
.
Five steps moved her
only one step closer to that chair; ten steps brought her back to step number
one. The cats snickered as they headed for the windowsill to perch, sniff and
purr
.
.. perch
,
sniff and purr.
Desperately foolish she demanded their attention,
"
Don't laugh at me;
help me get to that chair. "I'm tired; I need to sit down," she scolded.
"She needs to sit down.
She needs to sit down.
She needs to sit down ..
...
.
..
.......
.
.....
.
..
.
She needs to sit down,"
voices echoed through the walls that surrounded her.
Margo needed to find that chair she had just seen, the only one not
filled with the warmth of a man. Warmth
.
Are they warm? They-the men,
especially the men in this place? Margo saw there was no possible route to the
safety of the chair. For no matter what she did, she could not step forward
more than ten steps before she was back to where she began-perhaps another
Alice? Perhaps she could rest on the sill near the chair. Possibly she was only
worthy of the sill with the cats - but, of course, the male cats
.
Like Mark's cat
Tulli who forever sprayed his damn gendered excretion
.
Was it Mark
'
s cat or
Toni's?
It
was definitely Mark
'
s-male cat with male person. Toni-female and
blond, a best friend with female cat. But both pait of the past, not nearly a
piece of the daze or whatever it was that continued to pull Margo farther into a
haven that posted its sign,
No Women Allowed.
There, on the sill at last, she watched the kitties scatter nervously, like
the cockroaches in her Aunt Sophie's kitchen.
"No
,
come back!" she pleaded.










Mosaic
65
Outside, the
streetlights
glared onto
an approaching silhouette.
Margo
gazed at
a woman
scuffle
toward the window
and
listened
as
the woman began
to bang on the pane, pleading for
someone
to help her.
Margo screamed
for
someone
to help, yet no one responded. The men
were
too busy in their
gluttonous
rituals to notice them-the two women
.
In
what
seemed
like no more than
an
instant, Margo reprimanded the
men as
she
tried to move towards the door, "Oh, but it's
ok
to
allow
mothers to
give
birth to
you,
feed you from their breasts
,
change
your diapers, hold your
hands
and
tell
you all
is fine. Yet never allow
even so
much as a mother's
memory float by
or
bang on a window when you're mixing with the others of
your kind-males
from mothers' wombs. Help the woman!"
she screamed again.
Murmurs leapt
from
each man's mouth
as
they finally acknowledged
the
women's presence:
The sign
... the sign ... the
sign
....
..
......
.
...
.
.... .
The sign
... the sign
...
But, the sign ..
.
The
sign
... the
sign ...
But, the
sign ....
Margo
angrily
protested,
"Forget
about the
sign!"
Rumors roamed the
streets
of New York back in 1969. McSals closed
for
many months. When
the saloon
re-opened in 1970, women were allowed
inside the musty place where many men died because of
a
sign
on
a door.
Margo moved
away
from the city.
* A
newspaper article about an old alehouse in Manhattan inspired me to write this
story;
however, it is a fictional account and has nothing to do with the establishment's
historical events.
©2000






66
Spring
2003
Wedlock
By Michael Traynor
Look at my face
.
Look deep, at the tissue
Loosely wrapped about my brow,
Table scraps, rotted meat
That puckers at the edges,
Expelling its sickly spume
.
It is a love letter
,
Its calligraphy once wary
As a newborn
,
Each penstroke blushing
Black and impeccable
,
But now has succumbed to
Its every unsmoothing,
A fibrous thing,
Diaphanous
,
Coming to rest in a trunk
In the attic
Under the fossils of
Forgotten family portraits,
A tarnished slice of
Pseudo-cloth,
Indecipherable.
Stare until your eyes
Begin to swirl.
The chewed up flesh,
The compost
,
Infused with wormy greens
That embrace and entwine,
A helix of maggoty sinews.





I have made myself up
Like a circus clown,
Or a teenage girl
Who knows nothing of
Approximation
,
The pastels shrieking out,
So exaggerated.
Look at what I've done,
The eye pits
,
The stale breath
,
The lips a gutted trout.
A foul color bleeds
When I smile
.
I stand before you
In my gown of tattered flesh
On our wedding day
,
Mosaic
Taking my vows like medication
.
Look deep
,
into the face
I've made for you,
A face designed to tear and
Spit and writhe
.
A face meant to injure,
To tetTify
.
Look until your lip
Begins to quiver
,
And when you're through
,
I will ready myself for
The fall.
Oh husband
,
T
a
ke the veil from
My weak
,
jaundiced brow
,
Let it fall about my face
,
67









68
And
when it'
s
done
so,
Pull it tight
around
My
collar,
A
plastic bag
As airless
as
the
cosmos.
Spring
2003
I may tear
and spit and writhe
As
I
am
programmed
,
But
not for long
.
I
wi
II topple to the
altar,
Limp
as
a doll
,
Its
sutures
burst
open,
Sp
i
lling its insides in
Fluffy,
white blooms
That seem
hardly fat
a
l.
A child smiles,
its cheeks
Unlined and supple,
The
g
room
's
nephew
,
no doubt.
Fix your gaze,
dear husband
,
On thi
s
face
I've
created for you.
You
may dance on my bones
If
it pleases
you,
And
I will not rise to prevent
you.
All
I want is your eye,
Every one
of them,
Tethered to the cool of
My tombstone.
A
happy wife
,
Though decayed
,
For
I wi II have won you,
If
only in pieces
and
parts.
If
you
like
,
You may grind up my bones





With your dancing,
Flush out the goopy marrow,
For in fifty years,
I wi11 be golden,
Reborn
,
And that makes for
A suitable marriage.
Mosaic
69




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